The discussion on Adam and Eve being the first humans (or not)

Faith & Science Conversation
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Continuing the discussion from No. Adam and Eve were not the first humans:

I know the discussion was closed but it raises a question I constantly feel frustrated that nobody addresses and I cant find commentary. In the discussion on this forum that actually caused me to create an account people were saying that since Cain was fearful for his life there had to be humans before Adam and Eve.

I believe Adam and Eve knew each other for quite a while, as nothing in the text indicates that Cain and Able were the FIRST children of Adam and Eve. We just suddenly stumble across a story about TWO of the kids. It is Quite possible that humans Cain was afraid of were his older siblings who long since left the garden and went to build a life of their own.

Also, one of the curses was that Eve would have childbirth pains. How is that a curse if she didn’t know any different? I believe she birthed plenty of children PAIN FREE as they lived in utopiah for awhile! After the deception she would NOW know what pain in childbirth felt like and Cain was her first son born IN PAIN and the world as everyone knew it had just completely changed! This is why Able was still the first murder and Cain knew he was in deeper doo-doo with the rest of the population because he grew up under “sin” where the rest of humanity had not…but is just as impacted by the fall.

Always been my thoughts on it since it seems more logical but I have not had time to invest in researching, other than emails with a few rabbi’s.

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Yes. A number of scholars including Nahum Sarna and Rashi believe the text suggests that Eve was pregnant when God addresses her (in fact, that is why pregnancy came up in the first place). Also, the extra biblical literature argues that Eve was 3 months pregnant when she and Adam were booted from Eden.

Ziony Zevitt extends Sarna’s and Rashi’s arguments to claim that Eve may well have had additional children WHILE in Eden. I do not subscribe to Zevitt’s view, however.

These are 3 well-respected scholars and should not be dismissed out of hand. At the risk of being cancelled, you can read about the events surrounding the expulsion of Adam and Eve and their subsequent lives in my book,

M. T. Peterson, Genesis II: Recovering Its Original Meaning

(Amazon Kindle and Paperback)

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These ideas (I call them hypotheses) are familiar in the sense that I used them when I supported YEC thinking and was discussing with people on the streets. I was quite satisfied with myself when I could answer all the difficult questions people were asking but at the same time, I was a bit uncomfortable because these answers felt wiggling to evade difficult questions that threatened to shatter the simple and beautiful explanation I supported.

What changed my mind was that, as a young biology student, I got much new information about biology and some about geology and geography. When I tried to evade the difficult questions with smart answers on the streets, that worked fairly well. When the same answers hit the facts about the past, they did not work as well. Other interpretations of the Genesis stories could fit to the facts that I learned, my YEC-minded explanations did not. My personal conclusion about these YEC-minded hypotheses was ‘debunked’: they could work at the mental level in arguments but did not stand the crash test of reality.

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Hi, Lynn - and welcome to the forum!

Maybe one of the reasons there hasn’t been too much commentary on the details of Adam and Eve, their kids, and their eviction from the garden is that a great many here don’t necessarily see “Adam” (humanity) as needing to refer to a specific historical person. The story works just as well (better even) when one isn’t always trying to impose our modern questions and interrogations on it. At least there are a great many that see that here. Not all though. And others will be happy to fill in such details as they think they’ve pieced together - and will be happy to sell you books full of those sorts of machinations. You can usually take those with a grain of salt - Biologos doesn’t endorse all books that come up here generally. But there are books that Biologos does recommend. So there are resources to be had! Meanwhile, you may still get more good discussion and answers here too.

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I recently quoted a bit of a poetic take (by Pastor Brian Zahnd) that touches on these approaches to the Bible. It might interest you.

-Merv

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The analogy that came to my mind is reading about the Prodigal Son in the Bible and trying to fill in his background and life history. I would say that if you are trying to figure out how tall the Prodigal Son is from what is described in the Bible, you are probably missing the point of the parable. It feels like the classic “missing the forest for the trees”.

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God warned Adam that in the day he ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, he would die. How is that helpful if Adam didn’t know any different, living in a death-free utopia? I hope you see the problem your own theology creates for your beliefs.

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I am reminded of small children who have no concept of death so we have to say “they went to sleep.”

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I am trying to find the interview that Philip Yancy was having with Dr. Brand that I had previously stumbled upon face. They were discussing the subject of death before the fall of Adam and Eve Dr. Brand made the point that in a human body cells are constantly dying by the billions.

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Adam was not the first human but a human specially created by God to bring sin into the world. Which he did by “now becoming like one of us knowing good and evil”. Before man did not know the difference and certainly did not know that an evil act against God would be forever defined as a sin.
The human fossil record is sufficient to prove that people lived before Adam. Nothing in this understanding negates the Christian doctrine of Romans 5:12 12
therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
Nor does it change the undestanding of Romans 8.

13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

We must learn to incorporate solid evidence into our understanding of scripture. Not to play "gotcha with the scripture’ but understand that evidence is a product of science and history and that while the Bible tells us what God did the evidence tells us how God dit it. And when it comes to science the Lord God of the universe is yet more amazing.

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Mow you really are reaching.

Either you are going to pace some sort of reality on the Garden story or you are not. You appear to be trying to find a middle ground. Normally I would commend such a stance, but on this occasion it would seem to be contrived.

Sin has no form. It was nether created by man nor God. Sin is the byproduct of choice and knowledge. It is basically a deliberate act that is contrary to what you know to be correct or good, Usually it is considered against God Himself, but Jesus showed that you can sin against a person as well,

Paul claims Adam as the first (human) sinner, that is all. Hos was the first Crime. Jesus was the first to cancel sin. That is all Paul was trying to say. All this rubbish about sin reigning as a being or infecting like a disease is religious claptrap.

Richard

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If you find that interview, or quote - feel free to share more of it here. It is fascinating and sounds like the sort of observation Dr. Brand would make. Cells that refuse to die have, in fact, a special name, do they not? We call them cancer cells. Or at least I think I have that right.

Anyway - I’ve enjoyed both of the books I know about co-authored by Brand and Yancey: “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” and “Pain, the Gift Nobody Wants”. Both excellent works - and it’s possible that quote could be embedded somewhere in those books. It’s been a few years since I read them.

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So Adam was set up to fail and doom billions of people to hell. Hmmm. Seems a bit problematic, to say the least.

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The “fall” in Genesis 3 isn’t labelled “sin” in the narrative. The first “sin” recorded in the Bible is when Cain murders Abel in Gen. 4.

A good description of sin as the byproduct of choice and knowledge. “A deliberate act contrary to what you know to be correct and good” is also a good description. Basically, it’s a violation of conscience, which is something learned and not implanted in us as instinct or the “voice of God.” There are people in the world who lack a conscience – sociopaths and narcissists, for example.

Paul does speak of sin as a “power,” though that doesn’t entail it being a demonic entity or personal being. Viewing “Original Sin” as a disease that infected humanity is also a seriously flawed metaphor.

In a nutshell, “sin” is a violation of conscience, and conscience requires a lot of development (both in children and evolution) before it appears. (If sin is only a violation of God’s known and revealed commands, then it’s impossible for a child born in Tibet, for instance, to commit sin. They’re ignorant of God’s commands.) But on the flipside, Genesis 3 describes the thought process that goes into every “first” sin, both of humanity as a whole and every individual. As I’ve written elsewhere:

The serpent introduced doubt from the outside, and the woman determined her personal moral principles vis-à-vis the command. She applied her own moral judgment, a phenomenon that begins in adolescence and continues throughout the rest of life, and weighed whether the rule was hypothetically non-binding and contrary to her own self-interest (the fruit was “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom”). The universal nature of temptation and sin appears at the end of a process of moral maturation that all children undergo. In the end, the adolescent applies her own moral principles, considers her self-interest, and declares her independence, albeit prematurely. In the second instance of peer pressure, the man takes the fruit from the woman and eats it without apparent thought. If everyone else is doing it, me too! It’s an image of the cultural transmission of sin.

Although the Western church traditionally has viewed the first humans as adults at their creation, the nature of their disobedience better fits Irenaeus’ conception of them as children. The “fall” as presented in Genesis 2–3 perfectly replicates the moral transition from childhood to adolescence.

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Richard, i align with you on the first part of your response, however, i do not agree that sin is only here because man gained the ability to obtain knowledge. The bible tells us prior to sin that God brought the animals to Adam and that he named each one. This is BEFORE the fall. If Adam had the knowledge to name animals, he had the knowledge to make good choices (or bad ones).

I am a teacher, it is not the practise of education to test and grade students on knowledge that they have not yet attained and then condemn them according to that grade. So your claim there goes against the very fabric of modern learning. Given scientists use our modern understanding of the world around us to make assumptions about the past, then your own claim there is scientifically false!

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Hi Michael,
Even though I am YEC and will no doubt disagree with much of what is written, I have purchased your book and will read it. Please accept that if it gets into areas of gross biblical error…I’m going to start speed scanning.

Let me first acknowledge your prologue…i love it :kissing_heart: :rofl: :heart_eyes::

One day in the Garden of Eden, Adam called out to God, “Lord, I have a problem.” What’s your problem, Adam” “I’m lonely, and the animals aren’t fun. The food is a bit flat, and there’s nobody to talk with.” “Well, Adam, I have a solution. I’ll create a woman for you.” “What’s a woman, Lord?” “Well, a bit like you, but she’ll know how to take care of you. She’ll cook good dinners; she’ll give you a massage after you shower. She’ll fill you in on what happened all day. She’ll remind you what you have to do. She’ll be your friend.” Adam thought for a few moments, scratched his head, and asked, “How much is this going to cost me, Lord?” “I was thinking about an arm and a leg.” Adam smiled and asked, “And what could I get for a rib?”
Peterson, M. T. . Genesis II: Recovering Its Original Meaning: Reading Genesis II Again For The First Time (p. 7). Kindle Edition.

I will however dbunct one of the very first claims that you use to support the notion that we must reinterprete Genesis 2…

First, know that during this period, with the exception of a few psalms composed and recited or sung by King David himself, the books of the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible from this point forward) did not exist. In fact, holy Scripture did not exist. Most Bible stories were oral stories. Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy had not yet been written, and you learned everything you know about Father Abraham and King David by listening to stories from itinerant storytellers, privileged elders, scribes, or court priests.
Peterson, M. T. . Genesis II: Recovering Its Original Meaning: Reading Genesis II Again For The First Time (pp. 7-8). Kindle Edition.

You defeat your own statement there in saying…“it was an oral tradition that was passed on down through the ages…” [my paraphrase]

The fact that Moses then wrote in agreement with that tradition tells us that God himself did all of that exactly as both Moses writings AND the oral tradition illustrated!

We must not make assumptions that are not consistent with either the writings or the historical record…in this case you have made a significant error there that influences everything I’m sure that i am about to read after this premise.

That might sound harsh, but its true. I will still read your book, but i can assure you that I’m going to tear it to pieces with the subsequent errors i find connected to this premise. (i cant help that as a former high school teacher, i have been trained to read the work of students and then “grade it”)

Your second premise “expunge primevil history of the first 11 chapter of Genesis”…we can do that however this has a significant problem also…

The author of Abrahams story is Moses…the same man who wrote the first 11 chapters of Genesis!!! He wasn’t eyewitness to Abrahams life…how did Moses know? Two methods: 1. oral tradition and 2. revelation from God!!!

You cannot pretend that what Moses wrote about before Abraham isn’t historical and that history only starts at Abraham. Genesis doesn’t support that notion and the fact all of these individuals before and after Abraham are often referred to in much later bible writings…such as the genealogies. That’s a huge problem for your premise there. You can attempt to play the genre card all you like, it doesn’t trump the bigger picture of biblical theology that has its foundation on this history in Genesis 1-11 (and the rest of the Bible’s historical account for that matter).

Credibility doesn’t come from throwing out the evidence that doesn’t add up…in a modern criminal investigation, evidence that doesn’t add up in a person’s story is almost always used against them…to condemn their account as false! Each side in a court case very often attempts to hide evidence that is contradictory to their story. At the very least they take no interest in helping the other side win!

Oh man come on…your next premise is also very very problematic

“Ashurbanipal Library”

This library (700BC) was almost entirely comprised of artefacts from the far east BEFORE Babylonian invasion of Israel in 604 BC!

Given that vast majority of Israelite writings were verbal tradition as you have already claimed in premise 1, how do you support the notion that the “Noah like figure” (Atraphasis), and its strong relationship with the Epic of Gilgamesh flood story, is an accurate historical account of Moses works?

My biblical flood story isn’t influenced by Christian denomination beliefs or in absence of its mesopotamian context…its because of what i see written before my eyes in the bible account! If i am to believe that a man can raise a dead rotting corpse from the grave, rise up against gravity into heaven, and travel through space (a vacume) without exploding [exageration but you get the gist]…do you see where I’m going with this?

Now what page am i on in your book? (■■■■ i haven’t even got to the preface yet) At least the first paragraph of your preface is correct. (so there’s that)

What concerns me Michael, is that you are already using non Christian sources, that are well known even in biblical records as being heretical and heathen, as your evidence for twisting the meaning of the prophet Moses writings in Genesis.

Im deeply troubled by that as i was expecting biblical support for your presuppositions there, but that is not the case thus far!

I would ask that you cite the ancient references that support the following claim you make

A close reading of the Hebrew text reveals that He does not issue commands.
Peterson, M. T. . Genesis II: Recovering Its Original Meaning: Reading Genesis II Again For The First Time (p. 11). Kindle Edition.

Could you please recite Exodus 20 to us in light of that revelation you make above?

Finally…

A Personal Note I confess to being a practicing Christian, though of late, I’m not sure what that means.
Peterson, M. T. . Genesis II: Recovering Its Original Meaning: Reading Genesis II Again For The First Time (p. 12). Kindle Edition.

Im hearing your doubt there, we are both facing similar dilemmas i suspect. For me, when i look at the vastness of the horizon, i am totally unconvinced that a man will one day appear on that horizon and people, some of whom have rotted in graves for thousands of years (or been eaten by sharks and are nothing more than poo on the bottom of the ocean), will start floating up into the sky! For me, there is nothing scientific i can use to make sense of that…its blind faith!

Oh…i should end with this…you are not the only individual who knows ancient languages. My father has a bachelor degree in Hebrew and Greek…in the context of those original languages, your statement that no English bible translation can accurately illustrate to us…that is 100% your opinion and that is because there are many other “scholars” who discredit that notion. Id suggest a couple of famous ones who are world renowned textual experts: James White and Dan Wallace!

Perhaps watch the following debate https://youtu.be/WRHjZCKRIu4?si=q2Q8OItNAVJtE0ED

I use a variety of cross referenced sources in my theology…a variety of translations, the oldest known codeces, bible concordances…etc. None of that makes any difference to individuals here…they ignore those references because they highlight theological errors in Theistic Evolutionary belief and disagree with naturalism!

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Very enjoyable comments. Thanks. I’ll respond to them at one point, but one of our major areas of disagreement is the authorship of Genesis II. I do not believe Moses was its author, but as explained in the book, I believe that while many scholars reject the Documentary hypothesis, I do accept that the Old Testament texts can be categorized according to linguistic analysis.

Hence, given that its text exhibits a J-style of writing, its oral tradition probably dates back to 1300 BCE, and its written form probably between 850 and 1000 BCE. However, the account of Seth’s birth is likely a priestly addition, which would suggest the edit occured around 250-350 BCE.

Finally, in no case can the story of Adam and Eve be dated earlier that 1200-1300 BCE.

Blessings,
M

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your “miracles” defense btw is silly (im sorry to be so blunt but it is)

believe God can work miracles, including creating humans from dirt, should He be so inclined. But why would He take this approach when He had already created and established the principles of physics, chemistry, and biology?
Peterson, M. T. . Genesis II: Recovering Its Original Meaning: Reading Genesis II Again For The First Time (p. 15). Kindle Edition.

You are trying to insert into bible theology the notion that its pointless for me to cultivate the soil and tend to my vege garden when i could simply do that once and leave it to nature to do the rest! You and i both know what nature does in that situation…again, the argument you make there is nonsense in that, trying to rationalise why God “formed Adam”, “breathed the breath of life into his nostrils” then “placed him in the garden in the east of Eden” in the context of heathen claims that Noahs flood story is a Babylonian mythical fairytale…that is a fools errand!

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You may make that claim but it does not answer the immediate criticism of oral tradition of an entire nation of people who maintained what was largely an oral tradition for thousands of years (until writing this stuff down became common practise).

You obviously would be aware of the notion of “Chinese whispers” and this id suggest is your principal in discrediting literal reading of early scripture.

If you were to listen to the youtube debate between Bart Erhman and Dan Wallace (this is but one example of many similar debates), I’m sure you would recognise that its not likely for that notion to be credible.

Ooops i forgot to insert something i feel might be important here…

I have no problem with the claim that old testament scripture also has metaphorical applications. I am fully in tune with the notion of type/anti-type theology and agree with it. Those aspets in your book id suggest i would mostly agree with (haven’t read it all yet obviously)

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Michael,
your “Genesis II: the Original Interpretation” is flat out wrong!

I suspect that your underlying inference in that is, before Abraham was called out of UR of the Caldees, none of “Gods” people knew the creation account.

That is simply unbiblical nonsense. Mose writes of a time in Genesis that is long before Abraham. Other bible writers genealogies date back to before the time even of Noah…clearly the story was well known long before Abraham.

What in fact you are doing there is playing word games. By making that statement, then i assume the intention is to support it with the historical fact the nation of Israel did not exist prior to Jacob. That claim is true. However, it is also a flat out lie because it does not support the claim “no one” knew prior to the Exodus.

The fourth comandment specifically goes back to the notion of remembrance. “remember” that your were called out of Egypt. “remember” that you were created. “remember” that in six days God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. “remember” the sabbath day.

Attempting to discredit a normal reading of language by playing those kinds of games is a very poor theology and an even worse apologetic defense of faith. There is no credibility in the philosophical writings if we cannot also prove the history! Modern individuals who make empty promises are known as con artists and this is why the internal biblical history is so important.